Mickey Mouse is an cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.
Lachlan Pendragon recently won a Student Academy Award for his stop-motion animation short about stop-motion animation, An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. Now he’s on the 2023 Oscars shortlist as one of the 15 finalists for Best Animated Short Film honors. Pendragon, from Brisbane, Australia, made this […]
Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be is a delightful new animated film about the characters from the iconic French children’s book series Le Petit Nicolas, and their creators, author Rene Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempe. Little Nicholas won Best Feature at this year’s Annecy Film Festival, and it recently had its awards-qualifying theatrical run in […]
I have not seen every film based on Carlos Collodi’s 1883 Italian novel Pinnochio; the essential story has spawned countless variations and thematic similarities. In truth, I have seen six or seven, none especially notable other than the 1940 Disney animated classic, which remains the ne plus ultra of the bunch. That said, the 2022 […]
On the Oscar shortlist for the upcoming Best Animated Short Film category is Passenger (“Pasajero”), from director Juan Pablo Zaramella. A man boards a train and discovers a lot more about himself and society. This is a short about behavior, rewards, consequences and much more, as Zaramella explains. (This Animation Scoop interview was conducted as […]
Start Your Engines! The Oscar shortlist has been unveiled — 15 animated short films vying for five spots on the Academy Awards ballot. Voting takes place in mid-January, with the nominations announcement coming Jan. 24. One of the shorts in contention is Sierra, from director Sander Joon, who’s based in Estonia. It’s the story of […]
He may be near-sighted, but it was Mr. Magoo who could see the way and blaze a trail for all future animated television Christmas specials. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol debuted on December 18, 1962, on NBC, making it the very first animated Christmas special to be produced for television. It aired two years before Rudolph […]
A Handy-Dandy Checklist of the Animated Features Scheduled For Release in the U.S. in 2023 (This list is a constant year-long work-in-progress. More titles will be added. Release dates below may change.) 1. THE MAGICIAN’S ELEPHANT (3/2023) D: Wendy Rogers. (Netflix) 2. THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (4/7/23) D: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic (Universal/Illumination) 3. […]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 95th Academy Awards: Documentary Feature Film, Documentary Short Film, International Feature Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Music (Original Song), Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Sound and Visual Effects. Here are the ones of interest to […]
The fall and winter of 1952 saw many at the Disney Studio in a holiday mood. In October that year, Disney released the Donald Duck short that would become a Halloween classic, Trick or Treat. And, just a month later, the Disney artists would get into the Christmas spirit with a short that has become […]
Charles Solomon’s Animation Year End Review 2022
Although he wrote them in 1859, Charles Dickens might have been thinking of animation in 2022 when he penned the celebrated lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the […]